Tough Problem: Anonymous Posting Enabled Forum

[W. Jordan]

Hello Gurus,

I am developing an ASP.net forum in our intranet. The design
specification requires that the forum provides a way for
the users to post anonymously.

Here's the structure of the database table which stores the
threads in a forum:

CREATE TABLE Module_ForumThreads (
ThreadID int IDENTITY (1, 1) NOT NULL ,
ForumID int NOT NULL ,
Title nvarchar (100) NOT NULL ,
Poster Nvarchar (16) NOT NULL ,
PostTime datetime NOT NULL
CONSTRAINT DF_Module_ForumThreads_PostTime
DEFAULT (getdate()),

CONSTRAINT PK_Module_ForumThreads PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED
(ThreadID)
)

If somebody posts anonymously, the Poster field will be
logged as "Anonymous".

A typical sample of records might looks like these:

ThreadID, ForumID, Title, Poster, PostTime
1, 1, "Hello world", "Many", "2005-5-13 08:12:12"
2, 1, "Da**it my income's gotten cut", "Anonymous", "2005-5-13 08:13:39"
3, 1, "Hello world too", "John", "2005-5-13 08:14:05"

Since there's a timestamp in the table, if the boss is
unhappy about the record 2 by the anonymous, he might
require the IT professionals to check up the IIS W3C
logs stored in the intranet server, and search for a
record posted at "2005-5-13 08:13:39". By addressing
the IP in the IIS record, the boss will be able to
find out which guy has posted "Da**it..." actually.

The design specification of the intranet disagrees
what the boss might done as the above and encourages
the employees to post anonymously by providing a
real "anonymous" post, without traceable logs.

If I don't disable the IIS logs, how I can workaround
this problem and get a anonymous posting enabled
forum?

 

[Guest]

Hi but you can capture the IP address to the Database too..
That might be easier for you to do
Patrick

 

[W. Jordan]

Hi,

The purpose is NOT to capture the IP address for
the anonymous posters. Is there any way to provide
a un-traceable anonymous posting without disabling
the IP logging in the W3C logs in IIS?

Best Regards,
W. Jordan

 

[Juan T. Llibre]

Patrick,

please read the posts carefully before replying.

What you suggest isn't, even remotely, related to his question.

 

[Bruce Barker]

you could add a log filter to your site, that removed or changed the
ipaddress.

-- bruce (sqlwork.com)

 

[W. Jordan]

Hello Bruce,

It seems that it is beyond the capability of ASP.net.
Perhaps the fastest way is to disable the IP fields in the
IIS W3C logs...


--
Best Regards,
W. Jordan

 

[Patrick Olurotimi Ige]

Thats true my fault didn't get the question until the second post